Plasma Films held their public premiere of Bollywood North last night. In this short film, I play the role of the Thug. This event, with red carpet and all, was held at the The New Jaz’oo Cafe Villa on Sparks Street in Ottawa. The owners of this place are also Executive Producers of the film.

It started off with Graham Murray (the Director) giving a speech, preparing the audience for the film and a revealing statement about his work in the pornographic industry (may have been a joke). All kidding aside, he talked about the nature of Bollywood movies and how Bollywood North was a satire of the genre, Canadian style. 

The movie was played with a great reaction from the crowd. Lots of laughs were heard, including mine (the part where I get headbutted to the chest, Zidane style, always gets me). After the end of the film, the Producers Tiffany Murray and Philippe Paquette went up to talk and answer questions. Later they invited me up there and I responded a couple of questions as well. Graham also joined us to help out.

All in all, it was a great night due to the company of good friends and catching up with the people I worked with during the production of the film.

This evening, I had the chance to work with Jef Harris again. We got along well during the last shoot we did together and we both wanted to work together again.

So Jef contacted me and explained how he needed to do a Desi Wear print ad for Anokhi Magazine. Even with less than a day’s notice, I gladly accepted the offer. We shot it at Sin Hell’s Kitchen in Ottawa and I worked with Alexandra Rodionova (model) for the most part. We got along great and it was a good shoot. Looking forward to working with these two again!

I had been asked to do a local (Ottawa) commercial by Reel Impact Communications and shot it today. It was for an auto credit TV ad.

This was surprisingly fun to do! Also, there’s an interesting story involved with this one. First of all, this was shot on location at the car dealership. When I got in, I had talked to a few people as I was attempting to find out where I had to go. Eventually I found the room and changed into my suit, while they were shooting the female version of the commercial. I discovered that my suit’s pants were missing (this has never happened to me before.. and hopefully won’t in the future). So, instead of panicking, and informing Lois from Reel Impact (who was running the show), I decided to try and remedy the situation myself. Why give her unneeded stress?

Remember the people I talked to before going to set? Well one of him was close to my size.. his name was Steve. So after running into to the owner of the car dealerships and sharing my current situation with him, we Steve’s pants were the closest match to my suit color and pant size. The man had no choice but to switch with me (since the big boss told him to). I assured Steve that my jeans were comfortable and off we went into a room to change. I then returned to the set, with the production crew clueless about what just happened.

We shot in an actual office with people doing their work while Lois from Reel Impact kept everyone smiling and laughing with her unique sense of humor. I performed the commercial in both English and French. As we progressed with the different shots, I eventually asked if my pants were in the frame. Lois confirmed that they were. I then stated how I was glad I didn’t go through all the trouble of finding pants for nothing. Confused, she asked for clarifications. I told her, and whoever who was listening the story. It proved to be quite a hit with the people working there. We kept going and finished in under two hours of shooting. Overall, it went great. I made sure to thank Steve before I left, and traded back our pants. He agreed that my jeans were comfortable.

First off, the film “2@2″ by Parktown Productions took the Grand Prize in Calvin Klein’s IN2U short film contest! Also in July, we shot the short “Autopilot Off” in three straight shooting days. It was a blast to shoot. Shooting of “The Portal” also begun in that month, and we actually just finished shooting today. It was a great experience! The character I played was very different what I’ve done in the past.

As for smaller roles go, I had a couple of “special extra” ones in locally shot MOWs (Movie of the Week). One of them I played the “hot half naked guy”. Let me assure you it was the top half that was naked. It was a scene with two well established actress and lots of fun to shoot. Finally I participated in Pascal Aka’s short film rendition of his poem “Without You”.